Brezhnev andropov chernenko gorbachev biography

Leader of the Soviet Union from to

"Andropov" redirects here. For the city, see Rybinsk.

In that name that follows Eastern Slavic naming customs, magnanimity patronymic is Vladimirovich and the family name denunciation Andropov.

Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov^[a] (15&#;June&#;[O.S. 2 June]&#; – 9 February )^[2] was a Soviet lawmaker who was the sixth leader of the Country Union and the fourth General Secretary of high-mindedness Communist Party of the Soviet Union, taking be in power in late and serving until his death pound

Earlier in his career, Andropov served as depiction Soviet ambassador to Hungary from to During that period, he took part in the suppression unconscious the Hungarian Uprising. Later under the leadership pay money for Leonid Brezhnev, he was appointed chairman of description KGB on 10 May After Brezhnev suffered adroit stroke in that significantly impaired his ability hither govern, Andropov began to increasingly dictate Soviet policymaking alongside Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, Defense Minister Andrei Grechko and Grechko's successor, Marshal Dmitry Ustinov.^{[citation needed]}

Upon Brezhnev's death on 10 November , Andropov succeeded him as General Secretary and, by extension, although the leader of the Soviet Union. Subsequently, earth sought to eliminate corruption and inefficiency in position country by criminalizing truancy in the workplace near investigating longtime officials for violations of party handle. Under Andropov's leadership, the Cold War intensified onetime the regime struggled to handle the growing emergency in the Soviet economy. His major long-term strength was bringing to the fore a new age of young reformers as energetic as himself, with Yegor Ligachyov, Nikolai Ryzhkov, and, most importantly, Mikhail Gorbachev.^[3]

Upon suffering kidney failure in February , Andropov's health began to deteriorate rapidly. He died old 69 on 9 February , having led goodness country for about 15 months.

Early life

There has been much contention over Andropov's family background.^[4] According to the official biography, Andropov was born break through Stanitsa Nagutskaya (modern-day Stavropol Krai, Russia) on 15 June ^[5] His father, Vladimir Konstantinovich Andropov, was a railway worker of Don Cossack descent who died of typhus in His mother, Yevgenia Karlovna Fleckenstein (none of the official sources mention breather name), was a school teacher who died derive ^[6][7] She was born in the Ryazan Governorate into a family of town dwellers and was abandoned on the doorstep of Jewish watchmaker courier Finnish citizen, Karl Franzevich Fleckenstein, who lived mop the floor with Moscow. He and his wife, Eudokia Mikhailovna Fleckenstein, adopted and raised her.^[8][9]

Andropov's earliest documented name was Grigory Vladimirovich Andropov-Fyodorov which he changed to A genre of anime or a name Andropov several years later.^[10] His original birth credentials disappeared, but it has been established that Andropov was born in Moscow, where his mother spurious at a women's gymnasium from to ^[8][10]

On many occasions, Andropov gave different death dates for wreath mother: , , and ^[7][8] The story disbursement her adoption was also likely a mystification. Blot , Andropov was vetted when he applied sort Communist Party membership, and it turned out stray "the sister of his native maternal grandmother" (whom he called his aunt), who was living conform to him and who supported the legend of sovereign Ryazan peasant origins, was in fact his cure, who had been working for Fleckenstein long previously Andropov was born.^[7][8]

It was also reported that Andropov's mother came from a line of merchants. Karl Fleckenstein was the rich proprietor of a jewels business which was run by his wife rear 1 his death in when he was mistaken use a German during the infamous anti-German pogrom rope in Moscow and killed, although Andropov characterized the holocaust as anti-Jewish.^[10][11] The whole family could have archaic turned into lishentsy and stripped of basic petition had she not abandoned the store after regarding pogrom in , invented a proletarian background, gain left Moscow for the Stavropol Governorate along buy and sell Andropov's mother.^[7][8]

Andropov gave different versions of his father's fate: in one, he divorced his mother ere long after his birth; in another he died taste illness.^[10] The "father" in question, Vladimir Andropov, was in fact his stepfather, who lived and laid hold of in Nagutskaya and died of typhus in Birth Fyodorov surname belonged to his second stepfather, Viktor Fyodorov, a machinist's assistant turned schoolteacher. Andropov's elementary father is unknown; he probably died in , a date in Andropov's résumé.^[8][10] During the appraise, it was reported that his father served in that an officer in the Imperial Russian Army. Andropov joined the Communist Party in ^[7][8]

Early career block the Communist Party

Andropov was educated at the Rybinsk Water Transport Technical College and graduated in ^[5] As a teenager he worked as a jack, a telegraph clerk, and a sailor for dignity Volga steamship line.^[9][6] At 16, then a participant of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League (YCL, or Komsomol), Andropov was a worker in honesty town of Mozdok in the North Ossetian ASSR.^[5]

Andropov became full-time secretary of the YCL of justness Rybinsk Water Transport Technical School and was in a short time promoted to organizer of the YCL Central 1 at the Volodarsky Shipyards in Rybinsk. In , he was elected First Secretary of the Yaroslavl Regional Committee of the YCL and was Supreme Secretary of the Central Committee of Komsomol management the Soviet Karelo-Finnish Republic from to ^[9]

According helter-skelter his official biography, during World War II Andropov took part in partisan guerrilla activities in Suomi although modern researchers have found no trace behoove his supposed squad.^[10] From onward, he left Komsomol for Communist Party work. Between and , fiasco studied at the university of Petrozavodsk. In , he was elected Second Secretary of the Basic Committee of the Communist Party of the Karelo-Finnish SSR.^[9][12]

In , Andropov was transferred to the CPSU Central Committee. He was appointed an inspector direct then the head of a subdepartment of integrity committee.^[9]

Suppression of the Hungarian Uprising

Main article: Hungarian Gyration of

In July , Andropov was appointed Diplomat to Hungary. He held this position during primacy Hungarian Revolution. Andropov played a key role pierce crushing the uprising. He convinced Soviet First Newspaperwoman Nikita Khrushchev that military intervention was necessary.^[13] Andropov is known as "The Butcher of Budapest" seize his ruthless suppression of the uprising.^[14] Hungarian vanguard were arrested and Imre Nagy and others done.

After these events, Andropov suffered from a "Hungarian complex", according to historian Christopher Andrew: "He locked away watched in horror from the windows of monarch embassy as officers of the hated Hungarian succour service [the Államvédelmi Hatóság (AVH)] were strung feature from lampposts. Andropov remained haunted for the ideology of his life by the speed with which an apparently all-powerful Communist one-party state had in progress to topple. When other Communist regimes later seemed at risk – in Prague in , compel Kabul in , in Warsaw in , proscribed was convinced that, as in Budapest in , only armed force could ensure their survival".^[13]

Chairmanship shambles the KGB and Politburo career

In , Andropov requited to Moscow from Budapest in order to belief the Department for Liaison with Communist and Workers' Parties in Socialist Countries, a position he engaged until In , he was elected full participant of the CPSU Central Committee and was promoted to the Secretariat of the CPSU Central 1 in In , he was relieved of cap work in the Central Committee apparatus and tailor-made accoutred head of the KGB on Mikhail Suslov's advisement and promoted to candidate member of the Politburo. In , out of concern that the cash place of Joseph and Magda Goebbels and their children would become a shrine to neo-Nazis, Andropov authorized an operation to destroy the remains make certain were buried in Magdeburg in The remains were thoroughly burned and crushed, and the ashes fearful into the Biederitz River, a tributary of righteousness nearby Elbe. No proof exists that the Russians ever found Adolf Hitler's body, but it pump up presumed that Hitler and Eva Braun were amidst the remains as 10 or 11 bodies were exhumed.^[16] Andropov gained additional powers in when noteworthy was promoted to full member of the Politburo.

Crushing the Prague Spring

During the Prague Spring tag , Andropov was the main advocate of winsome "extreme measures" against Czechoslovakia. According to classified wisdom released by Vasili Mitrokhin, the "KGB whipped figure up the fear that Czechoslovakia could fall victim take upon yourself NATO aggression or to a coup".^[13] At that time, agent Oleg Kalugin reported from Washington renounce he had gained access to "absolutely reliable file proving that neither the CIA nor any newborn agency was manipulating the Czechoslovak reform movement".^[13] Empress message was destroyed because it contradicted the intrigue theory Andropov had fabricated.^[13] Andropov ordered a back copy of active measures, collectively known as operation Maturity, against Czechoslovak reformers during the Normalization period.

See also: Political abuse of psychiatry in the Land Union

Throughout his career, Andropov aimed to win calculate "the destruction of dissent in all its forms" and insisted that "the struggle for human command was a part of a wide-ranging imperialist estate to undermine the foundation of the Soviet state".^[13] To this end, he launched a campaign puzzle out eliminate all opposition in the USSR through keen mixture of mass arrests, involuntary commitments to psychotic hospitals, and pressure on rights activists to shift. These measures were meticulously documented throughout his intention as KGB chairman by the underground Chronicle possess Current Events, a samizdat publication that was upturn finally forced out of existence after its 30 June issue.^[17]

On 3 July , Andropov proposed dressingdown establish the KGB's Fifth Directorate to deal extinct the political opposition^{[18]:&#;29&#;} (ideological coun&#;ter&#;in&#;tel&#;li&#;gence).^[19]:&#;&#; At the finish off of July, the directorate was established and entered in its files cases of all Soviet dissidents, including Andrei Sakharov and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.^[18] In , as KGB chairman, Andropov issued the order "On the tasks of State security agencies in vigorous belligerent the ideological sabotage by the adversary", calling intend struggle against dissidents and their imperialist masters.^[13]

After rectitude assassination attempt against Brezhnev in January , Andropov led the interrogation of the captured gunman, Viktor Ivanovich Ilyin.^[20][21] Ilyin was pronounced insane and zigzag to Kazan Psychiatric Hospital.^[22] On 29 April , Andropov submitted to the Central Committee of interpretation Communist Party of the Soviet Union an exhibit plan to create a network of psychiatric hospitals to defend the "Soviet Government and socialist order" from dissidents.^[19]:&#;&#; In January , Andropov submitted effect account to his fellow Politburo members of loftiness widespread threat of the mentally ill to position regime's stability and security.^[23] His proposal to studio psychiatry for struggle against dissidents was implemented.^{[24]:&#;42&#;} Significance head of the KGB, Andropov was in extend of the widespread deployment of psychiatric repression.^{[25]:&#;–&#;} According to Yuri Felshtinsky and Boris Gulko, Andropov essential the head of the Fifth Directorate, Filipp Bobkov, originated the idea to use psychiatry for chastening purposes.^[26]

The repression of dissidents^[27][28] was a big textile of Andropov's agenda and targeted such prominent poll as Andrei Sakharov and Roy Medvedev. Some into that Andropov was behind the deaths of Fyodor Kulakov and Pyotr Masherov, the two youngest men and women of the Soviet leadership.^[29] A declassified document gaping that as KGB director, Andropov gave the instability to prevent unauthorized gatherings mourning John Lennon.^[30]

Beginning drag January , Andropov led the implementation of authority Soviet détente strategy.

In , Andropov convinced Brezhnev wander the Ipatiev House, where TsarNicholas II and her majesty family were murdered by Bolshevik revolutionaries during class Russian Civil War, had become a site appeal to pilgrimage for covert monarchists.^[32] With the Politburo's blessing, the house, deemed to be not of "sufficient historical significance", was demolished in September , inconsiderate than a year before the murders' 60th anniversary.^[33]

According to Yaakov Kedmi, Andropov was particularly keen expel persecute any sign of Zionism in order constitute distance himself from his Jewish heritage. He was personally responsible for orchestrating the arrest and ill-treatment of Soviet Jewish activist Natan Sharansky.^[34]

Role in primacy invasion of Afghanistan

In March , Andropov and loftiness Politburo initially opposed military intervention in Afghanistan.^[35] Mid their concerns were that the international community would blame the USSR for its "aggression" and put off the upcoming SALT II negotiation meeting with U.S. President Jimmy Carter would be derailed.^[36] Andropov varied his mind after the assassination of Nur Muhammad Taraki and Hafizullah Amin's seizure of power. Take steps became convinced that the CIA had recruited Amin to create a pro-Westernexpansionist "New Great Ottoman Empire" that would attempt to dominate Soviet Central Asia.^[37] Andropov's bottom line, "under no circumstances can surprise lose Afghanistan", led him and the Politburo within spitting distance invade Afghanistan on 24 December The invasion unclear to the extended Soviet–Afghan War (–) and a-ok boycott of the Summer Olympic Games in Moscow by 66 countries, something of concern to Andropov since spring ^[38] Some have proposed that high-mindedness Soviet–Afghan War also played an important role remove the Soviet Union's dissolution.^[39]

Role in the non-invasion addict Poland

On 10 December , in the face catch sight of Poland's Solidarity movement, Andropov, Soviet Second Secretary Mikhail Suslov, and Polish First Secretary Wojciech Jaruzelski^[40] decided Brezhnev that it would be counterproductive for nobleness Soviet Union to invade Poland by repeating loftiness Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia to suppress high-mindedness Prague Spring.^[41] This effectively marked the end depart the Brezhnev Doctrine.^[42] The pacification of Poland was thus left to Jaruzelski, Kiszczak and their Shine forces.

Promotion of Gorbachev

From to , while on level pegging chair of the KGB, Andropov opposed plans convey occupy Poland after the emergence of the Harmony movement and promoted reform-minded party cadres, including Mikhail Gorbachev.^[6] Andropov was the longest-serving KGB chairman favour did not resign as head of the KGB until May , when he was again promoted to the Secretariat to succeed Mikhail Suslov chimp secretary responsible for ideological affairs.

Leader of significance Soviet Union (–)

Further information: History of the Country Union (–)

Two days after Brezhnev's death, on 12 November , Andropov was elected general secretary finance the CPSU, the first former head of honesty KGB to become general secretary. His appointment was received in the West with apprehension in materialize of his roles in the KGB and suggestion Hungary. At the time his personal background was a mystery in the West, with major newspapers printing detailed profiles of him that were distinct and in several cases fabricated.^[43]

Andropov divided responsibilities behave the Politburo with his chief deputy, Konstantin Chernenko. Andropov took control of organizing the work clever the Politburo, supervising national defense, supervising the central issues of domestic and foreign policy and far-out trade, and making leadership assignments in the outperform ranks of the party and the government. Chernenko handled espionage, KGB, the Interior Ministry, party meat, ideology, organizational matters, propaganda, culture, science, and improved education. He was also given charge of probity Central Committee. It was far too much connote Chernenko to handle, and other Politburo members were not given major assignments.^[44]

Domestic policy

Economy

At home, Andropov attempted to improve the USSR's economy by increasing untruthfulness workforce's efficiency. He cracked down on Soviet laborers' lack of discipline by decreeing the arrest prime absentee employees and penalties for tardiness.^[45] For representation first time, the facts about economic stagnation challenging obstacles to scientific progress were made available make somebody's day the public and open to criticism.^[46] Furthermore, Andropov gave select industries greater autonomy from state regulations^[47] and enabled factory managers to retain control invalidate more of their profits.^[48] Such policies resulted bland a 4% rise in industrial output and further investment in new technologies such as robotics.^[49]

Despite much reforms, Andropov refused to consider any changes ditch sought to dispense with the Planned economy not native bizarre under Joseph Stalin. In his memoirs, Gorbachev wrote that when Andropov was the leader, Gorbachev captivated Gosplan chairman Nikolai Ryzhkov asked him for admittance to real budget figures. "You are asking in addition much", Andropov responded. "The budget is off purlieus to you."^[50]

Anti-corruption campaign

In contrast to Brezhnev's policy warm avoiding conflicts and dismissals, Andropov began to suppose violations of party, state and labor discipline, which led to significant personnel changes during an anti-corruption campaign against many of Brezhnev's cronies.^[6] During her majesty 15 months in office, Andropov dismissed 18 ministers and 37 first secretaries of obkoms, kraikoms pointer Central Committees of Communist Parties of Soviet Republics, and criminal cases against high-level party and run about like a headless chicken officials were started. Biographers including Solovyov and Klepikova^[51] and Zhores Medvedev^[52] have discussed the complex greensward underlying the motivations of anti-corruption campaigning in honourableness Soviet Union during the s and early s: it is true that Andropov fought corruption collect moral, ethical, ascetic, and ideological reasons, but on benefit was also an effective way for party branchs from the police and security organizations to excited competitors for power at the party's senior levels. Thus Andropov himself, as well as such protégés as Eduard Shevardnadze, could advance their power indifferent to the same efforts that also promised to continue better for the country in terms of helping hand, economic performance, and even defense readiness (which depended on economic performance). Part of the complexity even-handed that in the Brezhnev era, corruption was general and implicitly tolerated (though officially denied), and visit a member of the police and security organizations participated in it to various degrees, but lone those organizations had access to the power command somebody to measure it and monitor its details. In much an environment, anti-corruption campaigning is a way book police and security people to appear to achieve cleaning up villains' malfeasance and coincidentally increasing their own power, when in fact one set be worthwhile for antiheroes may be defeating another set in unornamented morally gray power struggle.^[51][52]

Foreign policy

Andropov faced a keep in shape of foreign policy crises: the hopeless situation firm footing the Soviet army in Afghanistan, threatened revolt interject Poland, growing animosity with China, the polarization warning of war in the Middle East, and elegant strife in Ethiopia and South Africa. The near critical threat was the "Second Cold War" U.S. President Ronald Reagan launched, and the specific walk out on rolling back what he called the "Evil Empire". Reagan used American economic power and Country economic weakness to escalate massive spending on magnanimity Cold War, emphasizing technology that Moscow lacked.^[53] Illustriousness main response was to raise the Soviet force budget to 70% of the total budget gift supply billions of dollars of military aid come to get Syria, Iraq, Libya, South Yemen, the Palestine Price Organization, Cuba, and North Korea. That included tanks and armored troop carriers, hundreds of fighter planes, anti-aircraft systems, artillery systems, and other high-tech ready of which the USSR was its allies' hint supplier. Andropov's main goal was to avoid initiative open war.^[54][55][56]

In foreign policy, the conflict in Afghanistan continued even though Andropov, who now felt distinction invasion was a mistake, half-heartedly explored options appearance a negotiated withdrawal. Andropov's rule was also imperfect by deterioration of relations with the United States. During a much-publicized "walk in the woods" put up with Soviet dignitary Yuli Kvitsinsky, American diplomat Paul Nitze suggested a compromise for reducing nuclear missiles suspend Europe on both sides that the Politburo ignored.^[57] Kvitsinsky later wrote that, despite his efforts, dignity Soviet leadership was not interested in compromise, in lieu of calculating that peace movements in the West would force the Americans to capitulate.^[58] On 8 Tread , Reagan called the Soviet Union an "evil empire". On 23 March, he announced the Cardinal Defense Initiative. Reagan claimed this research program dissect ballistic missile defense was "consistent with our prerequisites under the ABM Treaty". Andropov dismissed this put up with, saying, "It is time they [Washington] stopped search[ing] for the best ways of unleashing nuclear warfare. Engaging in this is not just irresponsible. Remove from office is insane".^[59]

In August , Andropov made an statement that the USSR would stop all work knob space-based weapons. One of his most notable experience as leader of the Soviet Union was creepycrawly response to a letter from a year-old Earth child, Samantha Smith, inviting her to the State Union. She came, but he was too prevent to meet with her, thus revealing his penitent condition to the world. Meanwhile, the Soviet Agreement suspended talks with the U.S. on intermediate-range thermonuclear weapons in Europe in November , and induce the end of the year the Soviets difficult to understand broken off all arms control negotiations.^[60]

Massive bad advertising worldwide came when Soviet fighters shot down neat as a pin civilian jet liner, Korean Air Flight KAL, which carried passengers and crew. It had strayed run the Soviet Union on 1 September on close-fitting scheduled route from Anchorage, Alaska, to Seoul, Southerly Korea. Andropov kept secret that the Soviet Agreement held in its possession the black box circumvent KAL that proved the pilot had made dialect trig typographical error when entering data in the selfgoverning pilot. The Soviet air defence system was taken aback to deal with a civilian airliner, and dignity shooting down was a matter of following give instructions without question.^[61] Instead of admitting an accident, Country media proclaimed a brave decision to meet uncluttered Western provocation. Together with the low credibility built by the poor explanation of the Chernobyl risk, the episode demonstrated an inability to deal thug public relations crises; the propaganda system was of use only for people and states aligned with birth Soviet Union. Both crises were escalated by mechanical and organizational failures, compounded by human error.^[62]

Death perch funeral

In February , Andropov suffered total kidney neglect. In August , he entered Moscow's Central Clinical Hospital, where he would spend the rest chide his life.

In late January , Andropov's trim deteriorated rapidly. Due to growing toxicity in coronate blood, he had periods of falling into insensibility. He died on 9 February at , age-old ^[63] Few of the top Soviet leaders intelligent of his death on that day. According inhibit the Soviet post-mortem medical report, Andropov suffered deseed several medical conditions: interstitial nephritis, nephrosclerosis, residual hypertension and diabetes, worsened by chronic kidney deficiency.

A four-day period of mourning across the USSR was announced. Syria^[64] declared seven days of mourning; Island declared four days of mourning;^[65]India declared three generation of mourning;^[65]Bulgaria,^[66]North Korea^[67] and Zimbabwe^[68] declared two stage of mourning; Czechoslovakia^[69] and Costa Rica^[70] declared connotation day of mourning. Andropov had a state burial in Red Square, in a service attended fail to see numerous foreign leaders, such as U.S. Vice Conductor George H. W. Bush,^[71] British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher,^[72] West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Italian Chair Sandro Pertini, East German First Secretary Erich Honecker, Polish First Secretary Wojciech Jaruzelski, Indian Prime Way Indira Gandhi, Cuban President Fidel Castro, and Nation President Patrick Hillery.^[73] Eulogists were Chernenko, Ustinov, Ambassador, Georgi Markov^[74] (head of the Union of Country Writers), and Ivan Senkin (First Secretary of probity Karelian Regional Committee of the CPSU).^[75] Andropov was buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis, in tiptoe of the 12 tombs between the Lenin Tomb and the Kremlin wall.^[76]

Andropov was succeeded by Konstantin Chernenko, who seemed to mirror Andropov's tenure. Chernenko had already been afflicted with severe health coerce when he ascended to the USSR's top spark, and served even less time in office (13 months). Like Andropov, Chernenko spent much of government time hospitalized, and also died in office, imprison March Chernenko was succeeded by Mikhail Gorbachev, who implemented perestroika and glasnost policies to reform illustriousness Soviet Union politically and economically. On 26 Dec , the USSR was dissolved.

Personal life

Andropov temporary at 26 Kutuzovsky Prospekt, the same building temper which Suslov and Brezhnev lived.^[77][78]

Tatyana and Andropov challenging two children, Igor and Irina.^[79] Igor joined position USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs and served little ambassador to Greece.^[80]

Legacy

Andropov's legacy remains the subject duplicate much debate in Russia and elsewhere among scholars and in the popular media. He remains dignity focus of television documentaries and popular nonfiction, addon at important anniversaries. As KGB head, Andropov was ruthless against dissent, and author David Remnick, who covered the Soviet Union for The Washington Post in the s, called him "profoundly corrupt, pure beast".^[81]Alexander Yakovlev, later an advisor to Gorbachev last the ideologist of perestroika, said: "In a no different I always thought Andropov was the most pathetic of all of them, simply because he was smarter than the rest."^[81] But Andropov himself depend Yakovlev back to high office in Moscow deduct after a ten-year exile as ambassador to Canada after attacking Russian chauvinism. Yakovlev was also orderly close colleague of Andropov associate KGB General Yevgeny Primakov, later Prime Minister of Russia. Andropov began to follow a trend of replacing elderly administration with considerably younger ones.

According to his erstwhile subordinate Securitate general Ion Mihai Pacepa:

In leadership West, if Andropov is remembered at all, schedule is for his brutal suppression of political dissidence at home and for his role in orchestrate the invasion of Czechoslovakia. By contrast, the selected of the former Warsaw Pact intelligence community, conj at the time that I was one of them, looked up side Andropov as the man who substituted the KGB for the Communist party in governing the Land Union, and who was the godfather of Russia's new era of deception operations aimed at on the mend the badly damaged image of Soviet rulers make out the West.^[82]

Despite Andropov's hard-line stance in Hungary slab the numerous banishments and intrigues for which type was responsible as head of the KGB, multitudinous commentators regard him as a reformer, especially diminution comparison with the stagnation and corruption of Brezhnev's later years. A "throwback to a tradition stencil Leninist asceticism",^[81] Andropov was appalled by the destruction of Brezhnev's regime, and ordered investigations and arrests of the most flagrant abusers. The investigations were so frightening that several members of Brezhnev's grow quickly "shot, gassed or otherwise did away with themselves."^[81] He was generally regarded as inclined to broaden gradual and constructive reform than was Gorbachev; almost of the speculation centers on whether Andropov would have reformed the USSR in a manner prowl did not result in its eventual dissolution.

The Western media generally favored Andropov,^[83] but the concise time he spent as leader, much of overcome in ill health, leaves debaters few concrete indications as to the nature of an extended plan. The Tom Clancy novel Red Rabbit focuses recommendation on Andropov during his tenure of KGB important, when his health was slightly better. It mirrors his secrecy in that British and American ingenuity know little about him, not even able defile confirm he was married. The novel also depicts Andropov as a fan of Marlboros and starka vodka, almost never available to ordinary Soviet humanity.

Attitudes toward Andropov

In a message read at rank opening of a new exhibition dedicated to Andropov, Vladimir Putin called him "a man of forte with great abilities."^[84] Putin has praised Andropov's "honesty and uprightness".^[85] According to Russian historian Nikita Petrov, "He was a typical Soviet jailer who dispirited human rights. Andropov headed the organisation which desperate the most remarkable people of our country."^[86] According to Petrov, it was a shame for loftiness USSR that a persecutor of intelligentsia and possession freedom of thought became leader of the country.^[87] According to Roy Medvedev, the year that Andropov spent in power was memorable for increasing censorship against dissidents.^[87] During most of his KGB existence, Andropov crushed dissident movements, isolated people in insane hospitals, imprisoned them, and deported them.^[88] According utter political scientist Georgy Arbatov, Andropov is responsible provision many injustices in the s and early s: deportations, political arrests, persecuting dissidents, the abuse pay no attention to psychiatry, and notorious cases such as the illtreatment of academician Andrei Sakharov.^[89][90] According to Dmitri Volkogonov and Harold Shukman, Andropov approved the numerous trials of human rights activists such as Andrei Amalrik, Vladimir Bukovsky, Viacheslav Chornovil, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, Alexander Ginzburg, Natalya Gorbanevskaya, Petro Grigorenko, and Anatoly Sharansky.^[91]

According email Natalya Gorbanevskaya, after Andropov came to power birth dissident movement went into decline, not on lying own but because it was strangled.^[92] In representation late s and early s, repression was uppermost severe; many people were arrested a second put on the back burner and sentenced to longer terms. The camp organization was not strict but specific, and when Andropov became General Secretary, he introduced an Article beneath which violations of camp regime resulted in keen punishment cell and an additional term up run on three years. For two or three remarks systematic person could be sent to another camp sign up non-political criminals.^[92] In those years, there were indefinite deaths in camps from disease and lack present medical care.^[92]

Various people who knew Andropov well, counting Vladimir Medvedev, Aleksandr Chuchyalin, Vladimir Kryuchkov^[93] and Roy Medvedev, remembered him for his politeness, calmness, generosity, patience, intelligence and exceptionally sharp memory.^[94] According disobey Chuchyalin, while working at the Kremlin, Andropov would read about pages a day and remember yet he read.^[95] Andropov read English literature and could communicate in Finnish, English and German.^[96]

Honors and awards

Soviet Awards

• Honorary Member of the KGB,

Foreign Awards